Way OT-I must be living wrong..

[morgan in nm]

Today, lightning hit my house again. Its happened every year that I have lived in this house and has cost me a fortune in televisions, phones and wire, appliances, etc. Today's, actually blew a portable phone across the livingroom shattering it as it hit the wall. Electric cords were blown clean out of the outlets. This time I got lucky because I unplugged most things before it got here. I don't know why it keeps hitting the house. I have a large flag pole out front that is much taller than the house and I have many elm trees that are also taller than the house and they never get hit. The second year I lived in this house, I was fattening up some pigs and lightning struck them, not killing them but slowed their growth for a month. My phones are still out because the entire line turned to crisp. Last year, it blew light bulbs that were turned off. They literally exploded all over the floor.

Just thought I would give my experience for those who say it will never happen to them. Either that or I need to go to church more often.

[Ysabel Kid]

Nothing metal on the roof that would be attracting the strikes?

Sorry to hear this!

[TedH]

Wow! Sorry to hear of your troubles. Hope you can find a logical explanation other than "living wrong".

[Blaine]

A good conduct medal is in order......

[kirkwood]

I've had lightning problems too. Is lightning actually hitting the house or hitting some distance away and following the power line coming into your house? You are better able to stop the problem if it comes in from the power line. At any rate, I recommend getting a whole house surge suppressor. Get the best you can afford and not the low end junk. Be sure to have someone check the quality of your current ground in the meantime. You may need to install a better ground rod so that when lightning hits, it heads down to ground immediately instead of hunting for ground throughout your house. Some houses actually need multiple ground rods. Sometimes splitting up your house circuits so you have more individual circuits may help isolate the problem and keeps the surge from spreading. Be sure to add high quality individual surge suppressors on the most expensive electronics, but you probably already do that.

[Gobblerforge]

Depending on location, multiple ground rods may be a code violation. Hve you done all the work yourself or did you have an electrition do it? Sounds like a ground problem. I agree that whole house protection is in order.
Gobbler

[C. Cash]

Wow....sorry to hear this and hope it's the last time. Glad it wasn't worse.

[kimwcook]

I'd seriously be looking into what the problem is.

And Blaine, I can't believe someone didn't call you on your medal award.

[kirkwood]

Depending on location, multiple ground rods may be a code violation. Hve you done all the work yourself or did you have an electrition do it? Sounds like a ground problem. I agree that whole house protection is in order.
Gobbler

That's true. And where it is allowed because of soil conditions, the separate ground rods should be bonded to the main rod off the incoming service so that they all have the same resistance. You don't want different parts of the building having different ground resistance. Plus the bonding connections should all be done outside the dwelling and never run through the structure itself. You often see this when you need to ground a satellite dish. If the installer puts in a ground rod for it, then a line should also be run back to the main ground as well, but not passing through the interior of the home. Having inconsistent ground resistance can cause electrical noise issues.

This is all work that absolutely needs to be done by code. Chances are that if someone is having lightning surge problems in an area, then the neighbors may be as well. Local electricians might be aware of this and have a solution that has worked in other homes.

[Jayhawker]

Isn't this what lightning rods are for? We used to have them on every building around the farm in eastern Kansas. Even had to replace them from time to time due to "use".

[morgan in nm]

I don't have a metal roof and my neighbors aren't experiencing the problem. The phone company just came out and fixed their box which was melted into a black mess and they said the same thing that yall did about the ground. They think its my mercury outside light that is causing the problem. However, I have never replaced it due to lightning. Its kinda sad when I have friends that won't come over and visit when there is a chance of lightning. I have surge protectors on everything and they have never tripped. Even when things that are plugged into them have melted and they are those expensive ones that claim to guarantee up to $25,000 in damage. The way I see it is that I have a few options. Either I am going to have to replace the entire electrical system of my house, put up several lightning rods which thankfully I can, or move out. What is kinda funny is that I have never had a circuit breaker trip all the times that I have lived here due to lightning. BTW, I had all the ground cables and clamps replaced on my power poles last year.

I wonder about another thing. The lightning seems to hit the part of the house where the roof is that older asbestos shingles that were put on there about 30 years ago. Its never leaked and because I can't dispose of those shingles, I haven't replaced them. I wonder if they attract static electricity from the wind and rain.

[Hobie]

If it is always striking the same point on the house....

My mother has a neighbor whose house is repeatedly struck, so many times that she sits in her house and literally shudders anytime an electrical storm passes. She's on top of some iron bearing rock that's closer to the surface at her place. Yes, she's on a ridge, the same one as my mom. My brother-in-law has the same situation, high iron content soil results in many strikes. Fortunately, its the same for all his neighbors so he doesn't have a higher incidence of strikes than they do.

I think you've got something nobody else does. Check out that roof/end of the house. SOMETHING (or a combination of things) there is acting as a lightning rod. You might have old metal shingles under the other roofing that are tied to the ground via plumbing like a standpipe or some such similar situation.

[jeepnik]

A good conduct medal is in order......

That's just plain cold. The fellow is just one of the enlightening.

[Blaine]

A good conduct medal is in order......

That's just plain cold. The fellow is just one of the enlightening.

Watt are you talking about, Jeep? Wire you giving me a hard time?

[awp101]

A good conduct medal is in order......

That's just plain cold. The fellow is just one of the enlightening.

Watt are you talking about, Jeep? Wire you giving me a hard time?

C'mon guys, he just needs an outlet to get this static off his chest...

Last year, it blew light bulbs that were turned off. They literally exploded all over the floor.

Off, on, it makes no difference since they were still tied into the electical system. Electricity is like water, it follows the path of least resistance until it finds an outlet (so to speak ).

I used to do in home appliance service. I've seen strikes blow bake/broil elements in ovens, heating elements in dryers and one time I even saw where it had blown the light bulbs in the fresh food section of a refrigerator. They were shattered all over the top shelf just like you described. Not to mention it toasted every board in that refigerator as well.

[horsesoldier03]

So I take it you would argue about lightning never striking twice in the same place!

Glad to hear that you got out of it a little easier this time. You might think of investing in a few lightning rod, be sure to ground them good!

[20cows]

Is somebody trying to tell ya' something...?

[Ysabel Kid]

BlaineG: "A good conduct medal is in order..."[quote="awp101"][quote="BlaineG"]

jeepnik: "That's just plain cold. The fellow is just one of the enlightening."

BlaineG: "Watt are you talking about, Jeep? Wire you giving me a hard time?"

awp101: "C'mon guys, he just needs an outlet to get this static off his chest... "


Where is that head-slapping smiley when you need it?

BTW, just discovered that you can only include 3 forwarded quotes max in any post - so had to do this by hand!

[awp101]

BlaineG: "A good conduct medal is in order...

jeepnik: "That's just plain cold. The fellow is just one of the enlightening."

BlaineG: "Watt are you talking about, Jeep? Wire you giving me a hard time?"

awp101: "C'mon guys, he just needs an outlet to get this static off his chest... "


Where is that head-slapping smiley when you need it?

Will this work?

[Rusty]

Morgan,
I'm a Ham radio operator AND I live in the lightening capitol of N. America.. the Tampa Bay area. There is only one place on earth that logs more strikes than this area it is another bay area in India.

You house is obviously the best grounded thing in your area. If you have a flagpole that is higher than the house you really have a simple solution right at hand. If you have a metal flagpole just ground the flagpole and I mean really ground it. One single ground rod in the ground might not do it. That can depend on your soil and your water table. Your ground rod needs to get into the water table and stay there year round. This is really important if you have a rainy season and a dry season. With you problems I would put down one rod and check it to see if it's grounded. If that works I'd go 180° from the pole and sink another one. If the single ground rod isn't grounded you can buy a coupling that will allow you to run another rod down on top of the first one.
If you want to take it another step you can build a device to dissipate the ions before they build up to put on top of the flagpole to reduce the risk even further.

Right after we moved into our house we had a strike hit the flue for the water heater. It followed the gas line until it came to a curve in the line at which point it jumped the curve. The resulting arc burned a hole in the line and started jetting a gas flame.

If you need any help feel free to e-mail me direct.

Happy Trails and God Bless,

Rusty <><